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Ground beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) communities on green roofs in Switzerland: synthesis and perspectives

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Abstract

Green roofs have recently gained recognition for their potential contribution to urban ecosystems by providing, among other services, habitat for plants and animals, and stepping stones for mobile organisms, thereby enhancing permeability among habitat patches across densely built cities. In Switzerland, investigations over the past 20 years on more than one hundred distinct green roofs across six cities have provided an unprecedented dataset on ground beetles, albeit with information that is scattered across unpublished reports and local databases. We present here for the first time a synthesis of the state of knowledge of ground beetle communities from green roofs in Switzerland. We describe 91 ground beetles species (19,428 individuals) and highlight patterns of species occurrence and composition across green roofs and cities. Most of the roofs host ground beetle communities dominated by five common mobile species with quite diversified ecological requirements. In addition, we observed nine species (10% of all species collected) that are conservation concerns in Switzerland and Central Europe as well as numerous stenotopic species (from grasslands and pioneer vegetation). This indicates that, besides sustaining local populations of common species, green roofs can also offer suitable ecological conditions of high conservation interest. We suggest both improving the design of green roofs (composition and configuration of vegetation, as well as soil depth and substrate composition) to increase their ecological value for species with the most different ecological needs, and to integrate green roofs into urban planning to make them more efficient as biodiversity supports.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Werner Marggi (CH-Thun) for the verification of some difficult identifications of ground beetles, Andrea Sanchez (info fauna – CSCF) for providing the ground beetles’ photographs and Michel Sartori (Museum of Zoology, Lausanne) for making the photographic equipment available. We are also very grateful to the canton of Geneva (DGAN, OCEN, DGEau) and HES-SO for funding support for the Geneva surveys, all partners that financed the studies considered in this paper and finally, to all those that helped with the field surveys.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute Earth Nature and Environment, Hepia, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, Route de Presinge 150, CH-1254, Jussy, Geneva, Switzerland

    Gaël Pétremand & Sophie Rochefort

  2. Info Fauna - CSCF, Passage Maximilien-de-Meuron 6, CH-2000, Neuchâtel, Switzerland

    Yannick Chittaro

  3. Biodiversity and Conservation Biology, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, CH-8903, Birmensdorf, Switzerland

    Sonja Braaker, Martin K. Obrist & Marco Moretti

  4. Institute of Natural Resources Sciences, Zurich University of Applied Sciences ZHAW, Grüental 14, CH-8820, Wädenswil, Switzerland

    Stephan Brenneisen, Magdalena Gerner & Alexander Szallies

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  1. Gaël Pétremand
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  2. Yannick Chittaro
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  4. Stephan Brenneisen
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  9. Marco Moretti
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Correspondence to Gaël Pétremand or Marco Moretti.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 5 Table of all species present on green roofs in the six cities sampled in Switzerland. Red List (LR) (Marggi 1994; Huber and Marggi 2005, completed in Luka et al. 2009): 0 = regionally extinct (not found since 1950); 1 = critically endangered; 2 = endangered; 3 = vulnerable; R = very rare species, not actually endangered; V = nearly threatened. Swiss List of National Priority Species (SLNPS) (BAFU 2011): 1 = very high national priority; 2 = high national priority; 3 = moderate national priority; 4 = weak national priority; 0 = no national priority. Wing morphology (Homburg et al. 2014, adapted): W = winged; D = dimorphic; S = shortwinged. Habitat width (Luka et al. 2009): E = Eurytop; S = stenotop. Habitat affinity (Luka et al. 2009): SH = steno-hygrophil; H = hygrophil; M = mesophil; X = xerophil; SX = steno-xerophil
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Pétremand, G., Chittaro, Y., Braaker, S. et al. Ground beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) communities on green roofs in Switzerland: synthesis and perspectives. Urban Ecosyst 21, 119–132 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-017-0697-7

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